RedC only reports results from each commissioning body in that body’s polls – so the Paddy Power result PDFs don’t make reference to the SBP polls and vice versa. But the methodology is the same for both.

Something I noticed while comparing the figures on abortion with those in RedC’s December SBP poll – there is substantial drop in support for X Case with suicide (adding together that option with the ‘where requested’ one), but most of it comes from FF and FG voters, while SF/Ind are unchanged: https://twitter.com/HC4N/status/289405889058832384/photo/1 (typo – Jan-12 should of course be Jan-13)

seems to me that the parade of FG/FF Oireachtas members coming out with ‘concerns’ over the suicide issue has had a significant effect on their voters, and probably as a result of pro-life lobbying.

support for the true pro-choice option (on request) is also down somewhat, except for SF voters where it’s actually up from 39% to 44%.

“support for the true pro-choice option (on request) is also down somewhat, except for SF voters where it’s actually up from 39% to 44%.”
That must be their populist-nationalist credentials as identified by CL shining through.

The format of the questions is different between December and January, which makes direct comparison difficult.

In December, people were presented with a set of propositions and asked individually whether they agreed with each proposition or not. In January, they were presented with a choice between four options and asked to choose which option they were most comfortable with.

To judge by the December responses, the median voter position is supportive of allowing abortion in the case of threats to the physical health of the mother (or in cases of rape), but is more dubious about the suicide grounds in isolation from physical health and is opposed to abortion on request/demand.

While it’s possible that opinion has shifted somewhat as time has passed since the Savita Halappanavar story broke, that’s not clear from the poll results alone.

yes, but ‘do you support legislating for X’ (out of 4 options from which you can choose any number) is essentially the same as ‘do you support legislating for X’ or ‘do you support abortion on request’ (single choice), assuming that people choosing the latter would have supported legislating for X too. as I say, the discrete option of “abortion where the woman requests it” – note the wording is the same – is closer by comparison, but there’s still a drop.

I was sceptical about any comparison too, until I saw the drop for the X case was largely confined to supporters of the main conservative parties, while it’s fairly evenly spread over all the demographic categories – something’s going on when 47% of FF voters support legislating for X including suicide, instead of 89% a month ago.

I suspect that a reason for RedC changing the questions (even if it is commissioned by a different client) is the confusion about the 63% figure for the X minus suicide option the last time round, so they switched to making people choose just one option.

technically the SF rise is probably insignificant, I just included it because it was the only positive change on either option.